The Ballard of Jazz the Knife
(c. 1992)
I. Opening Remarks
Piquerism - for those of you unfamiliar with the practice - is a perverse sexual interest in penetrating the skin of another person with sharp objects, including pins, razors, and knives.
Most often, the targeted areas of the body are the breasts, buttocks, and genitals and whilst for many lovers it's a form of edge play or risk-aware consensual kink, for the true sadist - who laughs at the idea of obtaining permission or that libertinism should conform to a code of health and safety - piquerism only becomes interesting when it results in extreme suffering and death or is performed post-mortem.
II. Biofictional Remarks
As a young child, I might be said to have had something of a piqueresque liking for sharp objects myself. I far preferred, for example, pricking balloons with a needle, than inflating them. And once, at school, I placed a drawing pin on a fat girl's chair in order to see if she too would explode with a bang [1].
And whilst I had an extensive range of toy guns, my favourite thing to play with was a plastic dagger with a retractable blade with which I could create the illusion of having stabbed myself through the heart (or knifed a friend in the back).
III. Literary Remarks
I don't know how D. H. Lawrence felt about this subject, but the following scenes are worth noting:
(i) Women in Love (Ch. VI) [2]
Pussum has confessed that she's not afraid of anything except black-beetles. She's certainly not afraid of blood ...
So when a man with a pale, jeering face laughs at her, she suddenly jabs a knife across his hand, causing him to leap up, cursing. He glares at her with sardonic contempt as the blood begins to flow from the wound inflicted by this feline young woman.
Birkin looked on with obvious displeasure, but Gerald is aroused by the girl's action. Later, in the taxi home, she sits close to him and grasps his hand in hers; "rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain [...] and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity".
(ii) The Plumed Serpent (Ch. XXIII) [3]
Cipriano strips and publicly executes a group of prisoners with a bright, thin dagger ...
"'The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,' he said in a loud, clear voice.
And swift as lightning he stabbed the blindfolded men to the heart, with three swift, heavy stabs. Then he lifted the red dagger and threw it down.
'The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,' he repeated."
Later, Cipriano and his fellow revolutionaries indulge in a little fetishistic blood play, dipping their hands into blood collected from the bodies of the executed men in a stone bowl and raising wet, red fists. They then sprinkle some of the blood on a fire in a neo-pagan religious ritual.
(iii) The Woman Who Rode Away [4]
A bored, middle-class white woman goes in search of adventure and to give her heart to the god of the Chilchui Indians ...
Two men grip her arms whilst two others "with curious skill slit her boots down with keen knives, and drew them off, and slit her clothing so that it came away from her".
They also remove the pins from her hair and touch her on the breasts and back. Then they drug her and groom her over the course of several weeks into the role of sacrificial victim. Her captors, the Indians, are superficially kind to her; gentle and considerate. Yet she sensed their cruelty underneath and when the time comes for her to die, they show no hesitation in killing her:
"When she was fumigated, they laid her on a large flat stone, the four powerful men holding her by the outstretched arms and legs. Behind stood the aged man [...] holding a knife and transfixedly watching the sun; and behind him again was another naked priest, with a knife."
They are waiting for the right moment, when the red sun is about to sink: Then the old man will strike with his flint blade and accomplish the sacrifice ...
Notes
[1] She didn't. And rather than encouraging my scientific curiosty, the teacher, Mrs. Horncastle, gave me a telling off in front of the class and made me apologise to poor, red-faced Mandy Howard.
[2] D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Lines quoted are on p. 73.
[3] D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clark, (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Lines quoted are on p. 380.
[4] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Woman Who Rode Away', in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn, (Cambridge University Press, 1995). Lines quoted are on pp. 55 and 70.
For another post involving knife play (and with reference to the case of Sid and Nancy), click here.
